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Indian Man Charged With Blasphemy For Exposing "Miracle"
bhagwad writes "When a statue in Mumbai began to miraculously drip tears, huge crowds began to gather, pray, and collect the water in vials. Sanal Edamaruku has exposed such bogus miracles before, and when he was called in, his investigations showed that it was nothing more than a nearby drainage. The entire investigation was caught on tape. The priests were outraged and demanded an apology. When he refused, a case of 'blasphemy' was registered at the police station and they now want to have him arrested." In related news, today Kuwait's parliament "passed amendments to the Gulf state's penal code stipulating the death penalty for those who curse God, Islam's Prophet Mohammed or his wives." However, they made no change to the penalty for playing a joke national anthem at a sporting event.
This isn't the first time that Tennessee has taken an anti-science position either. The unfortunate thing is, it's not the only state moving in that direction. A few years ago, I remember Texas was thinking of doing the same. The larger issue with Texas doing that, however, is that Texas happens to be of of the main producers of school text books in the US. I, personally, use that piece to explain why the US is so lacking in science education- the people writing the text books are under heavy theocratic control :(
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If you RTFA, you will know that it happened in a Christian church in Mumbai.
Drops of water on a holy statue? Sounds just like the Miracle of Peckham.
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Not a straw man, there are those Christians that claim that archaeologists who find dinosaur skeletons are the equivalent of modern day cryptozoologists who use hybrid taxidermy to support their claims. The more sophisticated dino-deniers believe that dinosaur fossils are a test of faith, and presumably take the fact that they fit so perfectly into the fossil record without a trace of scientific incongruity as evidence that their deity is almighty and powerful enough to fake evidence really well.
There's also those who claim that dinosaurs lived at the same time as humans and are mentioned in the bible, despite this argument being easily refuted by geological dating of the rocks the fossils are found in.
This must be Australia corner. Our Prime Minister is female, single, childless and an atheist. When such a person could be elected as the president of the USA I will believe in faeries at the bottom of the garden. The mad monk can keep the crap he is trying to import from American politics.
The Catholic church now officially accepts the Scientific model of the world almost completely including the Big bang and origin of species through Evolution. To mainstream Christians American version of Christianity now seems like a different religion from another planet, only superficially sharing rituals with the rest of the Christian churches.
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
The world is rapidly going the other way. Back in the 60s and 70s people thought that The Age of Reason had won and we could move into the future with hope. Now reason is under attack from the religions of the world.
Nope. Some people did, but others thought it was the dawning of the Age of Aquarius and a revival of spirituality. Many of those folks rejected science as being a force for evil -- there was a massive anti-science swing in the 1960s. Turn off your nostalgia filter and you'll find that there was no golden age.
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Atheism is being against religion while Agnosticism is having no religion.
I'm sorry, but that isn't correct. Atheism is simply asserting that there is no god. Agnosticism is a harder one to define but it is (in VERY brief) the idea that though there could be something beyond the mortal ken the details of it aren't anything more than pure speculation.
There are many shades of Agnosticism but there is only one of Atheism and that is "There is nothing supernatural." There is nothing in that statement that attacks anyone. People just feel attacked by it. I don't claim to understand why.
md5sum
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Oh, and:
Here, educate yourself.